The implementation of a data collection programme should
follow a normal project cycle. During the planning phase, a legal and
institutional framework needs to be put in place, and the current working
practices and budget will need to be reviewed, so that appropriate resources can
be secured for a sustainable programme. During the implementation phase, the
following must be addressed:

· Adequate
incentives must be provided to ensure members of the fishing community will
fully participate.

· All fisheries staff and others
in the programme will need training and supervision.

· Exchange of common experience
should be shared between countries.

· Technical committees can be
set up to guide the programme.

· Data will need verification
using methods integrated into the programme.

· Feedback should be obtained
from all those involved to provide information on system performance.

· Finally, the whole system must
periodically be appraised to guide adjustments as needs and resources change.

8.1 THE NEED FOR
PLANNING

The establishment or improvement of systems for data
collection require careful planning to ensure that the implementation proceeds
in comprehensive, cost-effective and timely ways. This involves a range of tasks
that can be encompassed within a project cycle framework from
identification and analysis of needs, through project formulation and budgeting,
to system design, implementation, monitoring and appraisal.

Identification and analysis of needs is a crucial phase of the
project cycle. Infrastructure requirements, mainly policy, legal and
institutional frameworks, are often not given enough emphasis. These issues are
sometimes more important for sustaining a Fisheries Information System than more
obvious requirements such as assessment of the required information
technology.

The most important considerations are:

· The information
system policy must be formulated at a high government level, as it will
eventually have to provide support for the fisheries policy at this
level.

· A legal framework ensuring the
active participation of fishermen in providing information must be available in
an early stage of development.

· The institutional framework
needs to be analysed and then altered to facilitate the active involvement of
all fisheries stakeholders and institutions.

· In designing a functional
Fisheries Information system, budgeting must consider the current and future
personnel and capital assets for a sustainable system.

· In the implementation phase,
considerable attention and resources must be directed towards continuous
training of all staff involved. Often, this is only superficially
considered.

· It is always advisable to
start with a pilot system and then expand when the core system has been
appraised and proved stable.

The system should be reviewed continuously to ensure it
supports fisheries policy and management objectives. The review should include a
continuous process of data verification. An iterative appraisal of the design
and function will give a higher probability of system adequacy and
stability.

Continuous feedback to all stakeholders (e.g. fishers,
industry, institutions and enumerators) is essential in sustaining a viable
system. Feedback requirements will naturally be different at all levels, and
these requirements will have to be specified.

8.2 PLANNING PHASE
(PRE-IMPLEMENTATION)

8.2.1 Legal framework

The appropriate legal framework and policy instruments need to
be placed before the initiation of the operational phase. In particular, legal
instruments that oblige the fishing sector to provide the appropriate
information on essential variables (e.g. catch and effort) should be
enacted.

Legal instruments that govern national, regional and
international industrial fishery regimes should always contain a general
stipulation that the captains of fishing vessels shall:

"Maintain on board a fishing log which shall be
completed on a daily basis as a true record of all fishing activities and
related matters in a manner as shall be determined from time to time by....(the
Minister/Director/this organisation/this agreement)."

Furthermore, such laws may also allow for the presence of
observers who are empowered to:

"Observe fishing operations, evaluate fishing
logs, inspect fish storage holds and processing areas, take fish and biological
samples and measurements and undertake any other action in the performance of
their duties as shall be determined from time to time by....(etc.)".

These records of operations of single vessels at sea may be
supplemented by visits of Inspectors at sea or during landings of fish to shore
or to other ships. Inspectors are similarly empowered, but will often also have
enforcement powers and, where the requirements of the law with regard to
information are not fulfilled, can demand immediate compliance under threat or
actual sanction.

Log sheets, thus defined in law, are legal documents to which
a Captain or senior crew member should add their signature, attesting that they
are correct. Unfortunately, all too often, the legal nature of these documents
is sometimes overlooked and non-compliance is treated as an administrative
failure. In many fisheries, catch logs are the only data source and they
therefore may also be used for compliance control. Consequently, non-compliance
with log completion and delivery should be treated as a serious breach of
licence or fishing conditions.

8.2.2 Institutional
framework

Fishery data collection programmes concern not only the
agencies responsible for their implementation, but also various other major
parties that, directly or indirectly, are involved in its operation or affected
by its results and conclusions. Such parties may be the national statistical
bureau, other national institutions, functional Non-Governmental Organisations,
universities or the different private sectors of the fishing industry. The
active participation of all possible stakeholders in the preparation and
implementation phases of a data collection programme is fundamental. It provides
opportunities for important aspects of data collection to be discussed by all
stakeholders, and not just fishery administrators and managers. This will
produce a better data collection system, which is integrated with the industry
as opposed to an onerous system imposed by government.

8.2.3 Working practices

Current data collection systems will often need to be modified
to meet new or revised objectives. The working practices of participants in the
chain of data supply and processing (e.g. from enumerators to information
technologists), some of which may have become established over many years, are
likely to need changes. It is important, therefore, to undertake an analysis of
current working practices and to develop programmes for working practice changes
that are realistic and achievable within reasonable time-periods. It may be that
the ideal situation cannot be achieved immediately, and changes may need to take
a step-wise approach, again with a continued appraisal to ensure that the next
steps are on track. The regular use of management analysis methods should
provide information upon which further recommendations for change can be made,
including:

· data recording and processing
methods (the nature and accuracy of the audit trail);

· methods of filing and
archiving;

· administration
practices.

8.2.4 Budgets

Regularly conducted data collection programmes necessitate
careful planning and the provision of human and financial resources to carry out
the large variety of functions related to field operations, computerisation and
data analysis (Table 8.1). For developing countries initial investment costs may
at times be met through foreign technical assistance. Recurring costs nearly
always have to be met by the national agency or fishery research institute
responsible for implementing the fishery data collection programme, and should
thus be planned for and budgeted on a long-term basis. Care must be taken in
preparation of the preliminary budgets during the design phase to account for
all investment and recurrent costs. Once the collection programme is up and
running, the budget will probably have to be adjusted to ensure adequate
resources are available to support the programme and meet its
objectives.

8.3 IMPLEMENTATION PHASE

8.3.1 Incentives

To implement a data collection programme, a reasonable support
must be obtained from the informants supplying the data (i.e. fishers, market
middle person, factories, traders, consumers, institutions, etc.). There are
several ways to achieve this:

· make informants
aware about the objective and importance of data collection and its consequent
uses (e.g. special publicity campaign, leaflet, meetings);

· impose a penalty on those that
do not co-operate (e.g. lower quota, suspension of licence, fines).

In general, data collection for scientific purposes should be
separated from data collection for enforcement. The reason for this is to remove
the incentive for fishers to bias sampling. Enforcement officers will tend to
get less co-operation when trying to obtain data since fishers may feel
threatened, or may have broken regulations which they will try to hide. For
instance, size frequency sampling, where fishers hide fish below the minimum
size, will bias the data. Such biased data may result in management decisions
that damage the fishery much more than simply catching undersized fish. Data
collection needs to concentrate on what is really happening in the fishery, not
what is supposed to be happening.

8.3.2 Training

Training is one of the most crucial components in the
preparation and successful implementation of data collection programmes, and
must always be given high priority.

Adequate training and supervision of staff involved in
monitoring are essential if the data collected are to be valid. Data collectors
are frequently junior in organisational hierarchies and are rewarded
accordingly. However, they are also expected to work in remote areas or as the
sole observers aboard ships, often with no contact with their supervisors or
colleagues for lengthy periods. It is important that care is taken in
identifying appropriate staff that are prepared with adequate training. Every
effort should be made to maintain morale and an awareness of the role of their
task in the broader fisheries context. Supervisory staff should make regular
site visits to maintain data quality, and regular in-service training sessions
should be held.

In general, training courses and workshops should target a
representative number of national staff involved in the preparatory and
operational phases of a programme, and should thus be an on-going activity.
Participants should include fishers, data collectors, supervisors, researchers,
computer operators, other decision-makers, data sources and users.

National workshops are a good means for addressing
methodological and operational problems encountered during the implementation
phase. They provide the opportunity for bringing together staff with different
responsibilities and activities, such as data collectors and supervisors,
information system operators, statisticians and researchers. In addition,
periodic dialogue meetings should be arranged with all those participating in or
contributing to a data collection programme. This way, adequate transfer and
dispersal of information will be assured and the problems that may have occurred
in the interim period will be addressed.

Data collectors and supervisors are the backbone of a data
collection system since they are in direct contact with the fishers and have
first-hand experience regarding field operations. Their participation will make
them feel they are part of the entire survey programme and will greatly assist
in the identification of problem areas related to data collection
operations.

Participation of information system operators is also
important since their observations regarding inputting and data storage
operations may bring out suggestions for improving the format of source forms
and their compilation by the data collectors.

Statisticians and researchers can explain basic statistical
aspects, train junior staff in data collection and sampling approaches, verify
the utility of the statistics and discuss improvements in data dissemination and
analysis.

National workshops of this nature ideally take place over a
period of 20-25 days, and should be organised at the end of a full year cycle.
An example of a workshop schedule, contents and participation is given in Table
8.2.

Table 8.2 Example of a schedule for a National
Workshop.

Period

Activity

Participants

Day 1 - Day 3

Basic sampling theory, statistical concepts and
exercises.

Statisticians, researchers and other users

Day 4 - Day 13

Compilation of data to be used as case studies. Editing of
collected information. Guidelines for general format and structure of data
collection forms. Discussions on field activities and data collection
problems.

Data collectors, researchers and
statisticians

Day 14 - Day 19

Using a computer system operating with databases of reference
tables, frame survey data and samples of landings and boat/gear activities.
Computation of estimates and variances. Exercises and case studies with actual
data from pilot or full-scale surveys.

Statisticians, researchers, other users and information
system operators

8.3.3 Exchange of experiences with
other countries

Irrespective of differences in type and size of fishing
industries, fishery data collection programmes are generally based on certain
basic and commonly accepted methodological and operational foundation. They
often utilise standardised data collection schemes and computer software. It may
thus be of interest for a country in the process of initiating or enhancing a
fishery data collection programme, to benefit from the experience and knowledge
of other countries that have already made good progress.

8.3.4 Technical
committees

Standing committees on fishery statistics (e.g. for stock
assessment or statistical standardisation) can play a key role in the
co-ordination of data collection programmes. They are particularly useful where
different agencies or institutions are involved in various components of an
overall survey system. Their terms of reference may include:

· use feedback information from
National Workshops for the preparation of reports with findings, conclusions and
recommendations;

· advise on corrective actions
if and when needed;

· provide recommendations on
staff and other resource needs.

Technical Committees should meet on a regular basis and their
composition and level of authority should allow submission of their
recommendations to higher government authorities for consideration and
action.

Additional permanent working groups can be
established:

· to discuss the
relevance of the output in relation to objectives;· to standardise the way
measurements are made;· to set up utilities.

8.3.5 Data
verification8

The verification of data is essential to ensure that data are
accurate, complete and give a true indication of the state or value of the
factors under consideration. The problems associated with the collection of
fisheries data mean that the risks of collecting erroneous or inappropriate data
are very high without careful and statistically valid design and
monitoring.

Different types of data will need to be verified in different
ways. Some examples of methods to verify data include:

· checking logbooks
against landings data (e.g. sales notes);

· sampling catches for species
or grade composition;

· comparing landings statistics
with certificates of origin, trade and commodity production statistics (e.g.
processed fish) and similar sources of information;

· inspecting data collection
methods by statistical staff;

· interviews with
fishers;

· observer schemes or
inspections;

· reporting from sea on retained
catch on entering and leaving the fishing zones;

· using vessel monitoring
systems, such as transponders, to monitor the position, catch and activities of
vessels;

· instituting airborne and
shipboard surveillance, together with the boarding of vessels.

In cases where fishery-independent data, such as stock
abundance indices from research surveys, are available, it is possible to use
these as an independent check on CPUE indices based on commercial fishery catch
and effort data. In cases of suspected serious misreporting of catches, it is
even possible to use such fishery-independent data to obtain estimates of the
commercial catches.9

9 Such a procedure has been used in
some analyses undertaken by the International Council for the Exploration of the
Sea (ICES) and an account was presented to the Co-ordinating Working Party on
Fishery Statistics at its Seventeenth Session (FAO Fisheries Report No. 555,
paragraph 91).

At the macro-level (typically national), food balance sheets
can be used as an overall check of the consistency between production,
utilisation, trade and consumption statistics. For such an exercise, it is
necessary to convert all figures into live-weight equivalent units using
appropriate conversion factors. Total fish production from capture fisheries and
aquaculture, less quantities used for non-food purposes (e.g. fishmeal
production) plus imports minus exports should correspond to the domestic food
fish supply. It is usually expressed in per capita terms by dividing by the
population size. The average per capita fish supply can then be compared with
fish consumption estimates derived from food surveys. Large deviations from food
survey results or large fluctuations from year to year suggest that there are
problems with some of the statistics used in the calculations.

8.3.6 Feedback

Since data collection is a co-operative effort, all parties
involved should receive some benefit from the data gathering, analysis and
dissemination programme. This is to ensure the continuing co-operation between
primary data sources (informants) and data collectors. Providing valuable
feedback to fishers on changes and trends in their performance should promote
this co-operation. On the other hand, disregarding the importance of feedback
would severely constrain the co-operation with informants becoming suspicious
about the outcome of the analysis and the dissemination of the
information.

In general, feedback from informants and data users should
always be encouraged in order to ensure that the information system responds to
the needs of all parties, as effectively as possible.

If the feedback mechanism recognises inadequacies in the data
collection system, these should be addressed immediately and monitored.
Consequently, the system should always be sufficiently flexible to allow for
periodic adjustments, in particular, when the target fishery is dynamic and
subject to change.

8.3.7 System appraisal

The establishment or development of a data collection system
should be the subject of continuous appraisal to ensure that it is meeting its
desired objectives. This is critical if the system is to function efficiently
and be sustainable on a long-term basis. The system needs to be continuously
scrutinised by the operators and users to resolve any problems that may occur in
the data trail. Consequently, resources should be allocated in the annual budget
to resolve the problems that are inevitably going to occur. No system is perfect
and it is not until the programme has been up and running for some time that all
the major obstacles will be overcome.

Particular attention should be given to reviewing whether the
system provides the necessary output to meet the management objectives and
support for the fisheries policy. The links between the management objectives,
the indicators chosen and the data collected should be clarified and established
(if missing), following the rational process described in these
guidelines.